He pushed himself to his feet. “I doubt your parents noticed the bed.”
She scrambled up onto her knees. “No. I mean, that was the idea, right?”
He gave a tight little nod, hating her a little bit in that moment. Or at least hating that she was still thinking coherently when he’d lost the ability. “Yeah,” he said as blandly as he could manage. “Apparently it was.”
“I—” She climbed off the bed, coming to stand right beside him. “I’m sorry.”
He was struck suddenly by how petite she was. Standing flat-footed beside him, the top of her head barely reached his chin. And yet, she never seemed small. She had more than enough personality to fill a woman half a foot taller. And more than enough strength of will to stand up to him.
He hadn’t been able to face her father without embarrassing himself a few minutes ago, but her endless stream of excuses certainly killed the mood. She hadn’t been as affected by the kiss as he had. Fine. But she could damn well stop harping on it.
“Stop apologizing,” he ordered. “We all make mistakes. I’m just not used to making such stupid ones.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but snapped it shut again when he brusquely smoothed down her hair. Then, since he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her, he pressed one quick kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go face your parents.”
Some things are embarrassing no matter what your age. Having your father stare down your boyfriend is one of them.
At seventeen, she and her boyfriend had been caught necking in the back of his truck. The make-out session had been bad enough. Worse still was the fact that her date had been high. Her father wasn’t very forgiving of that sort of thing. Never mind that she hadn’t known it at the time. She’d gotten reamed. He’d had the poor boy arrested. And had her hauled in and tested for drug use just to make a point. Was it any wonder the next year when she went to college she’d picked one thousands of miles away?
She’d always assumed that would be the low point of her boyfriend/father debacles. But this—oddly enough—felt worse.
Maybe it was because Devin—or had it been Drake?—had been carefully chosen for his many red-flag qualities. He’d been guy number twenty-six in her ongoing teenage quest to piss off her parents.
As she followed Jonathon into the hall, she held her breath, half afraid of the argument to come and half relieved to be escaping Jonathon’s one-on-one scrutiny.
Her parents were waiting for them in the hall. Her mother sent a wan smile, a hint of apology in her eyes. Her father, on the other hand, looked as if he could happily strangle Jonathon with his bare hands. Which was saying something, because Wendy had always figured it her father was going to murder someone, as a lifelong hunter and a member of the NRA, he would opt for a gun rather than sheer brute force.
Even with Devin—or was it Derek?—her father hadn’t seemed this mad. Normally, she knew how to handle her parents. Twenty-three solid years of pushing their buttons made her an expert at undoing the damage. But just now, she was drawing a blank. Every brain cell she had was still stuttering with the memory of that soul-searing kiss.
He could have taken her right there, with her parents on the other side of the door, and she would have been okay with that. More than okay. She would have been begging for more.
Not a good thought, that one.
Since she could barely put a single coherent thought together, she was infinitely thankful that Jonathon seemed to be recovering more quickly than she was.
He draped an arm over her shoulder in a possessive, but nonsexual way. Giving her parents a distant nod, he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, I’m sorry you saw that.”
“Oh, no need to apologize—” her mother began.
“You’re sorry we saw that.” Her father talked over her mother. “Or you’re sorry you did it?” His tone was as ice-cold as his reproof. “Because to my way of thinking, a man who loves his wife doesn’t fool around with her in the middle of the morning when her family is in the house and the child they hope to rear is in the next room.”
“Dad!”
“Now, Tim—”
Jonathon held up a hand, stopping both her protest and her mother’s. He drew out the moment just long enough for everyone to know he wasn’t about to just kowtow to her father’s bullying. “And to my way of thinking, a family that respects their daughter doesn’t show up on her doorstep unannounced.”
Her mother opened her mouth, looked ready to say something, then pressed her lips into a tight line and stomped off down the stairs.
Wendy’s father continued to glare at Jonathon. Jonathon did a damn fine job of glaring back.
“If you think making my wife cry will endear you to me,” her father said through gritted teeth, “then you’re sorely mistaken.”
Wendy wanted to protest. Those hadn’t been tears in her mother’s eyes. Just anger. But Jonathon didn’t give her a chance to point it out.
“The same goes for you. Sir,” Jonathon bit out. But apparently he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Because a second later he stepped closer to her father and said, “And I’ll have you know, that before she agreed to marry me, I never once so much as touched your daughter at work. I have the greatest respect for her intelligence. And her decisions. I’m not sure you can say the same.”
Both men seemed to expand to fill their anger. Any second now, they would either start bumping their chests together like roosters or one of them would throw the first punch.
She figured they were equally matched. Her father was a solid six-five, and a barrel-chested two hundred and fifty pounds. Plus, he’d worked on rigs alongside roughnecks in his youth. Jonathon, on the other hand, had grown up poor, spent a few weeks in juvie, and had two older brothers, both of whom had criminal records. She figured he could probably handle himself.
She looked from one man to the other. Neither of them seemed to be willing to budge. Finally, she just shook her head. “I’m going to go talk to Mom. You two, sort this out.”
She gave Jonathon’s arm a little squeeze, willing him to see her apology in her eyes. Then, as she walked passed her dad, she laid a hand on his arm. “Dad, I’m not seventeen anymore. And if Jonathon was planning on besmirching my honor or whatever it is you’re worried about, then he probably wouldn’t have married me. Give him a chance. You have no idea how good a guy he is.”
She went down the stairs, half expecting her father and Jonathon to come tumbling down after her in a jumble of brawling arms and legs. And she tried to tell herself that if they did, it wasn’t any of her business.
Peyton was apparently asleep again, because a stream of lullabies could be heard through the baby monitor sitting on the kitchen counter. Her mother was doing what most Texas women do when they’re upset. Cooking.
Wendy gave a bark of disbelieving laughter.
Her mother’s head jerked up, her eyes still sharp with annoyance. She had a hand towel slung over her shoulder, paring knife in her hand and a chicken defrosting in the prep sink.
She gave a sniff of disapproval before returning to the task at hand, dicing celery.
Wendy bumped her hip against the edge of the island that stretched the length of the kitchen. That honed black granite was like the river of difference that always divided them. Her mother on one side: cooking to suppress the emotions she couldn’t voice. Wendy on the other: baffled at her mother’s ability to soldier on in silence for so many years.
“You